Eternal Winter
Can I have some leaves, please?
Miss me?
I started drafting something last month and just… stopped. After a surprisingly upbeat winter, I thought I’d dodged the seasonal doldrums. Nope. They were just waiting for me to be get cocky and distracted.
The good news is we are seeing buds and flowers and green grass and temps above 40°F. I need a few more warm sunny days to charge my battery, but they’re coming. I’ll be complaining about the heat in no time.
Why Do I Do This Again? Convinced my inbox was broken, I sent out some queries for the rewrite to agents who either never saw the previous version or did but passed for marketability.
The good: My inbox is working just fine. The bad: They’ve all been rejections.
The masochistic: I’ve got a new WIP! The plot bunnies keep chewing through my chapters, but I think it’ll be a fun journey once I fill the holes and herd the buggers into their habitats.
It’s my first foray into M/M, and it’s a bi-awakening, which is personal catnip. The characters are perfect polar opposites and just the right amount of broken, and I have a startlingly clear view of the path they’ll take to HEA—despite the bunnies. I’m super excited for it to get rolling.
It also takes place on an island loosely based on my favorite vacation ever, so if someone would like to pick up my current MS and sign me to a multi-book contract so I can take another vacation and expense it as research… that would be great.
Why I Have Tinnitus: A Cautionary Tale. XM station Turbo continues to remind me how old I am, and also how much I really like Slipknot. Like, a lot.
They go hard, but their vocalist has range beyond gruff grunting and screaming, which led to me wandering down some rabbit holes (unrelated to the plot buns) to see what else Corey Taylor has done. Turns out, he’s been busy.
Turns out Stone Sour was his original band, before Slipknot brought him on. I’d always thought they were a side project, but in fact they were a resurrection after-the-fact. They have a slightly mellower sound, which is a bit like saying putting your hand into the fire hurts different from pressing it against the stove. Still burns like heck, my friends.
He’s also done some solo stuff that’s got an almost southern rock feel to it, and that’s the stuff I’ve really been digging. The dude can sing. His cover of Chris Issak’s Wicked Game is stellar.
Thank You Sir, May I Have Another? Have I flailed and screamed about Bend Toward the Sun, yet? Just in case, picture me flailing and screaming, because Jen Devon knows how to write a story that will rip you to shreds. I aspire to incite even half the agony that she’s capable of generating through her characters.
I don’t think Bend received half the notoriety it deserved, partially because the cover, which is really lovely, smacks of women’s fiction vs romance novel. This is a Damn Shame, for the reason’s outlined above. Which brings me to the next installment in the Brady boys’ saga: Right Where We Left Us.
Full disclosure: I already think this writer can do no wrong, so am I truly an impartial judge? Only one way to find out. Pick up Bend and fall in love. You’ll have no choice but to then pre-order Duncan’s story, which releases on June 18, 2024.
Partial Disclosure: I’m not even finished with the ARC yet, but I’m reviewing it anyway, because nothing short of a meteor crashing into the planet could cause this to end badly.
Duncan Brady sees himself as the ugly duckling of his family, but not like that. He knows he’s gorgeous, and he knows he’s funny, but he feels unaccomplished compared to his siblings who are out there rocking advanced degrees and best-seller lists. He was on his way to potentially great things, until a piss-poor decision shattered his heart and that of the woman he just can’t get out from under his skin.
The tattoos and the beard may have modified his exterior, but inside he’s mad at himself and the world for the situation he’s in, and the love he wants to get back, but doesn’t feel he deserves.
Dr. Temperance Madigan shaped herself into the form most pleasing for her emotionally absent parents, but her calling isn’t to sit in a boardroom and dictate the direction of her family legacy. She wants to be on the ground, in her clinic, helping parents and children be healthy and thrive. There’s just the problem of funding, and her parents are holding all the financial cards.
There’s also the problem of Duncan. Thanks to the marriages of her sister, and now her good friend, to Brady men, she can’t get away from him, and she can’t decide if she even wants to. He does things to her insides that she loves and hates simultaneously, because he also broke her way back when they were teenagers, and the heart doesn’t forget.
The push and pull between these two is beautifully frustrating. I’ve never met two people more determined to ignore their own wants and needs. I want to slap them silly and lock them in a room together until they figure it out. Or something else that begins with F.
I love seeing glimpses of Rowan and Harry from Bend. Their story was agony, and their HEA is lovely to witness. There’s also the tension between friend Frankie and Brady brother, Mal.
Jen, if you’re reading this, they better be book three or I will throw things. The only thing I love more than a broken man is a broken man who’s broody.
I leave you with a snippet of Life With Clover, AKA Remy is the most patient dog on the planet.